The default software settings in Windows 11 bring unnecessary complications, especially when choosing a default web browser.
Windows 11 comes with much positive news and that we have mentioned in recent months. However, it also includes some features that are not entirely clear or make no sense. Such is the case with choosing a default web browser; Microsoft seems to have focused its effort on forcing users to adopt Edge, even when they prefer other software for the task.
This is how The Verge publishes after analyzing how the default application settings have changed in Windows 11, compared to Windows 10. The new operating system developed in Redmond unnecessarily complicates the procedure. It forces us to manually stipulate which browser we want to use for each type of file or web link.
If you open a link with a new web browser for the first time, you do not choose to keep it as default; it is more complex to change it later. Historically, browsers such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox show alerts asking if you want to configure them as the default web browser when they detect that they are not. The process never took more than a click to accept, but now Windows 11 made it more cumbersome.
When setting another browser as preferred, users are sent to the system’s default applications window. From there, they have to choose which software they want to use to open each of the eleven specified file types or links. We talk about him, HTML, pdf, HTML, SVG, web, xht, XHTML, FTP, HTTP, and HTTPS. They all run automatically through Microsoft Edge. If you want to do it with Chrome, or another alternative, you must select it and confirm it in an additional dialogue box.
Windows 11 and an unnecessary complication when choosing our preferred web browser
As Windows 11 is still in development, we don’t know if the change to the web browser configuration process will be this complicated in the final version. Anyway, this situation already generates noise in the competition. The report cites the dissatisfaction of Firefox, Opera and Brave representatives about this determination of Microsoft in favour of Edge.
The truth is that there is nothing wrong with the way the default applications are chosen in Windows 10. It is more straightforward, and at the same time, easy to configure. The current operating system allows you to choose which software to use according to the file type or protocol, but it does so in a separate section and is designed for more advanced users. So why change it?
If Microsoft trusts Edge and the potential it can still squeeze out of it, it is unnecessary to force its use in Windows 11. The web browser has already proven that it is one of the best today – primarily based on Chromium – and does not need the “bad reputation” of being a product imposed by its creators. We’ll see how this story ends.